Hello All
In another thread I asked about peoples highlights of summer well I just had a low light, a big derailment, that got me to thinking about protype operations.
Pulling a 3 car train up a long grade on my RR tonight the engine hit something that caused it to derail and stop. Probably a dreaded acorn.
I cut power and went to rescue it, when I lifted the front of the engine the cars unhitched and started a runaway train. It was a long near 75’ run on a 2% + grade so the cars picked up a lot of speed. I couldn’t do anything but watch then listen as they went out of sight and crashed off the track. I reported to my wife that the last of the last beans from the garden might be a little late to the table since they were just involved in a major crash but the MOW crew was busy setting up a work train to go collect the pieces. I met the crane train down back at the scene of the derailment and even though the 3 cars had flown off the track at a high rate of speed and fell about 30 inches they landed on leaves so they were not damaged. The beans survived as well.
In the proto world when there is a big crash like this what happens to the cars involved? In some cases they can be put back on the tracks but what if they are in such bad shape they cannot? In the old days they might have been abandoned but certainly not in todays environmentally friendly world. Would the damaged cars be lifted onto a flat car and brought either to the scrap heap or the shop to be fixed? Would a 40’ boxcar be placed on a 40’ flat? How about a really long passenger car? How could that be dragged back to be repaired? In a really bad crash do cars get chopped up on site then hauled to the scrap yard?
How would the real RRs handle it?
Todd
Can’t answer your question, but the wreck sounds familiar 
(http://photo.cvsry.com/Derail1-640.jpg)
I did have some damage, so the cars were returned on flats…
stuff was loaded onto flatcars and gons, and hauled to the scrappers. Wood cars were sometimes simply burnt.
(http://www.eaton.migenweb.net/Landmark-photo/Mulliken-train-wreck-6-2-1908-4.jpg)
(http://www.eaton.migenweb.net/Landmark-photo/Mulliken-train-wreck-6-2-1908-5.jpg)
(http://www.ci.watauga.tx.us/development/Images/Train%20wreck1.jpg)
(http://www.ci.watauga.tx.us/development/Images/crains1.jpg)
(http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/0/5/1/4051.1295653127.jpg)
Interesting. My wife suggested last week that we take a couple of old boxcars or something and bury it at the bottom of deadman’s curve to simulated an old wreck.
Derailments are something I’ve been concerned about from Day One, considering that there are so many places on my layout where track is up high, including curved trestles, and nothing but rocks below. I don’t know if it’s luck or good design, or some combination of both, but so far haven’t had any catastrophic derailments.
The trouble spots (mainly switches) have all been where the track is on the ground. I do have one switch on a trestle but the mainline runs straight through it, and haven’t had an opportunity to even use the spur, so I haven’t had any trouble with that one yet.
Hi Todd,
In the REAL WORLD as you call it, the car’s would NOT have rolled away like your’s did. In the REAL WORLD once the air line GLADHANDS seperated the brakes would automaticly apply because the AIR is used to keep the brakes off. Most of the time the damaged rolling stock was removed and returned to the shops to see what was repairable or what parts could be saved or salvaged except for the wooden car’s. Some of them were burnt up and some were set off to the side and left to ROT AWAY.
Jon you did have a very similar wreck to mine. I wonder if I put a “wrecked” boxcar on a flat like you did if it would make it through some of my tunnels?
Nice period photos Mik, just how did they transport that pass. car back to the shops? Nice cranes pictured.
I too have some high spots that would make for a terrific wreck if a derailment was to happen there. I always inspect the track… most of the time but sometimes things are missed like the time I walked therails with my scotchbrite pad on a pole and Molly one of our Cocker Spaniels who prides herself in laying out fresh turds on the mainline came along behind me adn worked her magic. Wouldn’t you know it the leaf plow missed it somehow and the poopy bits caught my NW2 sideframes. GROSS.
Ron the engine crew assured me that the air lines were functional and I believe them, pending the investigation, but the cars involved were old and run down so anything is possible. Last week one of em had an axle let go from the journal box which caused a small derailment. What can we say the “Rock, Root and Dog Poop Rail Road” is a poor RR so safety concerns are a little lax but as we say on “the road of hard knocks” any publicity is good publicity.
So mostly in todays world the pieces are picked up, put on flats or gondolas and hauled to scrap. I might have to build an extra long flat car to accomadate the pieces from the next wreck.
ROFLAMO - That’s too funny !!
More shovel ready projects! Mebbe you can get a transportation subsidy! 
In todays world, wrecked cars that can not be put back on the rails, are loaded on flatcars to be offloaded at the nearest yard. They may be fixed or sold for scrap after they have been canaballized for all the still useful parts.
If you have a chance to run through Afton Canyon on the UP, you can see a boxcar roof sitting just above the level of the Mojave River. Maybe someday I will take a shovel out there and see what it is.
In the Carrizo Gorge, along the San Diego & Arizona, there are two boxcars part-way down a cliff. They’ve been there since the '60s, if I remember correctly.
Along the Dechutes River, There is Boxcar Rapid, named after several boxcars that left the tracks along the old Oregon trunk railroad, now BNSF.
A few years back I saw CSX wreck and a few cars were so smashed up they cut them up on site with torches and rotary saws and loaded the chunks into gons.
Terry